OKC Thunder In the news: 5 years after Harden, Plane scares, Wolves angst
OKC Thunder in the news for Saturday October 28 focuses on another loss to the Wolves, a crazy incident at 30,000 feet, the 5-year anniversary of the James Harden trade and being patient with the offense.
It was not a great night for the OKC Thunder as it turns out on or off the court. First of all, in a matter of 5 days the team lost to the Timberwolves – twice — by a cumulative 5 points. TI opined the Northwest division was going to be scary (read: most competitive this season) and that may turn out to be the understatement of the year. Once again the OKC Thunder lost a close one to those pesky Wolves, again down the stretch. The only difference was this time it came on the Wolves court in Minnesota.
Yet, the bigger news occurred off court early this morning. This, as the team traveled to Chicago to finish their back-to-back set against the Bulls. As per TI’s post the team charter hit something which left a massive dent on their plane.
At the time it was reported the plane hit something at 30,000 feet. Beat writer Erik Horne has since provided an update via a statement from Delta who say the plane apparently hit a bird on it’s descent into Chicago.
Thankfully, the plane landed with out incident and everyone is safe.
Zach Lowe Musings:
Big surprise my favorite scribe makes the list. Lowe offers his musings on 10 things that have struck him through the early season. Of course the OKC Thunder make his list. First, Lowe offers it’s only a matter of time until the OK3 find their bearings, which I’d agree with. That debate has been hot here at TI. While I recognize the need to integrate the others, the reality is the end goal is a title and to reach that place the OK3 need to be on the floor together. Odds are any title run will go through Oakland and GSW sure aren’t looking at separating their 4 All-Stars so whyshout the Thunder?
The second tidbit is the current narrative regarding the issues of the offensively challenged Roberson and the defensively stunted Abrines. Lowe muses:
"Oklahoma City is too talented to scuffle for long. They are feeling out the Westbrook-George and Westbrook-Carmelo Anthony pick-and-roll combinations — how defenses will respond, and the best counters to those responses.The Thunder’s real issue: finding the fifth guy to play alongside their core four. No defender is ever going to be in Andre Roberson‘s ZIP code; dude is air-balling free throws. His minutes are down. There will be no place to hide Alex Abrines on defense against good teams. Jerami Grant has played zero seconds alongside the Westbrook-George-Anthony-Steven Adams quartet, and Billy Donovan may consider any lineup with George as the nominal shooting guard a little too big. I’d try it — with Grant or Patrick Patterson. Raymond Felton is … Raymond Felton.Oklahoma City needs another rotation guy — badly."
More from Thunderous Intentions
- Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
- Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
- 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
- Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
- Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder
My personal opinion on this is the Roberson situation is in his head. The kid is just too talented and passionate not to be able to correct things. The problem may be simple, but not ideal however — time. This is in his head and is growing.
In the interim OKC need to hire a shooting coach immediately to work with Roberson and maybe even send him to a sports therapist. You don’t become a top defensive talent like Roberson without work ethic. Heck, defense is all work ethic and intelligence. That said, I did opine Patrick Patterson would eventually be in closing game situations and once he gets to December (his typical time to start hitting threes at an advanced rate) watch his minutes sky rocket.
The other notable from yesterday was it marked the 5-year anniversary of the James Harden trade. TI scribe Austin Sternlicht provided his musings on how the trade affected him personally and dives into how the trade looks five years later.
"One of the big misconceptions about this trade is that the Thunder chose Ibaka over Harden. Two months before Harden was traded, the Thunder signed Ibaka to a 4-year 48 million dollar deal. But, the Thunder weren’t choosing between Harden and Ibaka. They were really choosing between Harden and Russell Westbrook. Westbrook was clearly the better player at the time, and it’s certainly more acceptable to say he remains the better player."
Sternlicht had me thinking about the day of the trade and in retrospect how shocking it was.
That’s it for October 28, In the news. TI scribes serve up the Bulls- OKC Thunder game preview later today. Can Russell Westbrook remove the final team on his triple-double list? check back to find out along with TI’s post game grades, morning video recap and of course Tony Heim’s 5 takeaways. Plus make sure to follow us on Twitter during the game. Have a great Friday.